


if you'll be my bodyguard (I can be your long lost pal)

by theatrythms



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Implied Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, Nick Fury/Carol Danvers if you squint, Post-Captain Marvel (2019), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), written before endgame came out lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 16:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: “SHIELD has an awful history of losing its greatest strengths to lifelong missions.” She sighs, training her eyes on the melting sunset of LA, all the palm trees swaying and swinging in the breeze. Peggy laughs dryly, as if the joke has lost its humor long ago. “My boyfriend crashed into the sea."“That’s rough buddy.” Fury says, watches as Goose curls around her and purrs, as the SHIELD office workers depart for the evening.





	if you'll be my bodyguard (I can be your long lost pal)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this literally the evening after seeing captain marvel , don't really know why I didnt post it then hahaha but I hope you enjoy it !! this is very vague and endgame compliant , but this really all came from fitting an avatar reference in. I hope you enjoy it!!!  
> title comes from call me al by paul simon

It’s Coulson that runs into his office, panting and giddy and yelling about someone bursting through the roof of a Blockbuster somewhere in LA.

 

He’s new here, Fury chalks the enthusiasm up to that.

 

Then he’s pulled through a vaguely life-affirming and life-changing and dynamic adventure that changes the way he looks at things.

(Literally. He loses an eye.)

 

But he gains a friend.

 

Carol Danvers is one of those people that smiles with her eyes and laughs with her gut. He didn’t know her very long, but the time he spent with her made it all worth it.

 

(Even the eye.)

 

It’s sad, vaguely, knowing that the next time he’ll see her the world could be ending. There’s no room for the optimism that somewhere in the near future the Skrull people will find a safe place that the Kree won’t find them, and she’ll be able to come home again. He’s only seen an ounce of Kree tech and he doesn’t like it.

 

(The Skrulls will be hunted and hunted and hunted and Carol Danvers will always always always be the one to protect them.)

 

“Does she have a superhero name?” Coulson asks first, absentmindedly scratching behind Goose’s neck.

 

“A what?” Fury deadpans.

 

Coulson blinks, churning the words over in his head. “Well, I mean like. Y’know, we had Captain America. Not his real name, of course, that’s Steve Rogers, but we can’t refer to her as Carol Danvers forever.”

 

(Most of the time Fury spent with her he called her Vers. Is there room for superhero names when you’ve lived six years of your life as someone else?)

 

“She liked Mar-vell.”

 

“Mar-vell?”

 

“Yeah, like two words.” He hears her say, back in Louisiana in that weird limbo between coming back from space and leaving again.

 

“Right, okay,” Coulson stutters, some dream apparently dead. Fury is somewhat used to Captain fans coming through the SHIELD ranks, but there’s something devoted about Coulson, baby faced and altogether too eager.

 

Still, Fury decides to humor him.

 

“When Captain Danvers returns from her mission, she can name herself.” He huffs, ignoring pointedly the way Coulson’s eyes widen.

 

“So a superhero name is not exactly, off the cards then?” Goose seems to purr in agreement, the gold star attached to his new red and blue collar shining in the LA light.

 

“We’ll just have to wait until she’s needed, I guess.”

 

Fury doesn’t believe it when he says it. He’s decided, as soon as he left the kitchen to leave Carol with what’s left of her little family before leaving, that he would never see her again. Half of him has made peace with that, and the other wishes for maybe a bit more time. People like Carol Danvers are rarer than falling stars and passing comets. The earth needs people like Carol Danvers.

 

But not as much as the Skrull people.

 

And that’s how he keeps the wishing away,

 

-

 

Peggy Carter is retired by the time 1996 rolls around, living somewhere cozy in New York with all of her family, hidden away from active duty. Fury supposes that’s all you could ask for in life, in retirement, in a field like theirs.

 

He finds Peggy Carter in his office, petting Goose with a bright smile, the same regal and poised air around her she’s always had and her hair set in curls.

 

“Oh, Colonel Fury,” She greets, accent still as thick as ever, like she’d just stepped off the boat. “I’ve been waiting.”

 

“Sorry to keep you.” He says and means it. Fury rubs top of Goose’s head gently, grinning as his head rises to reach him. “I see you’ve met the office pet?”

 

“Office pet? More like _your_ pet.” Peggy brushes off. “However, I much prefer dogs. But Goose is an old one, so mellow.”

 

 _So mellow_ , she says, as if Fury hasn’t seen the cat open his mouth and swallow men whole.

 

Peggy is one of the few retired SHIELD veterans who sees retirement as retirement. He never sees her around here.

 

“You’re not here to see about the cat.”

 

Peggy shrugs, almost rueful, holding her palms up. “You’re on the money.”

 

“Nothing wrong with that.”

 

She makes a face, pensive. “I’m sure you’ve had a lot of people asking about her. It can be a bit overwhelming.” The sigh comes out weary, aged in a way Fury has never considered her as. “I’ve been there.”

 

“I just say it’s confidential, ‘cause it is.” He gestures to his eye, and the rippled skin and stitches still healing around it. “The eyepatch helps.”

 

“Imagine what Howard would’ve thought of that.” Peggy laughs, no room for sympathies and condolences. They’re military; casualties happen. Howard Stark is four years dead come winter.

 

She straightens her shoulders, the jovial, cheery Peggy Carter rolls off of her, and she’s a SHIELD operative again. Like she never stopped. Still jovial, still cheery, but this time you can’t see the weight of everything she’s done.

 

“So what was she like?” Peggy asks, half-in jest and the other half deadly serious. Her words are always chosen carefully, and chosen with weight behind them. “The captain?” Her lips quirk, but she doesn’t smile.

 

(How to go about describing Carol Danvers? Too human and too un-human. Ordinary and extraordinary all at once. A genuine hero, the way legends and comic book heroes always are.)

 

“She was good.” He says instead. From everything Maria told him about the earlier years of her life, it wasn’t the energy core inside of her that made her that way.

 

Carol just always was good, but she glowed now.

 

“She knew to make the right calls and right decisions. Funny too, always a bonus for a superhuman.”

 

“I know about her mission.” Peggy says, with a sad twinge to her smile. “It’ll be a long one.”

 

“It’s an important mission.”

 

“SHIELD has an awful history of losing its greatest strengths to lifelong missions.” She sighs, training her eyes on the melting sunset of LA, all the palm trees swaying and swinging in the breeze. Peggy laughs dryly, as if the joke has lost its humor long ago. “My boyfriend crashed into the sea.”

 

He’s read Steve Rogers file cover to cover, knows the story well enough to know Peggy’s ache.

 

(Another captain, another endless mission, and the tesseract pulling them all together like sewn up stitches. Fury just has to be there when they come home.)

 

“That’s rough buddy.” Fury says instead, watches as Goose curls around her and purrs, as the SHIELD office workers depart for the evening.

 

“Let’s just hope we don’t need Miss Danvers anytime soon.” Peggy chirps, rising to her feet slowly, giving Goose enough time to jump down to the floor. Fury extends a hand to help her up, but withdraws when she rolls her eyes. “The Skrull finding safety is her top concern, therefore it’s one of SHIELD’s.”

 

“So we’re going extraterrestrial now?” He laughs, picking up Goose and his keys from his desk in one scoop.

 

“Please, Colonel Fury.” She smiles, fuller now, all white teeth and lips. “We’ve always been extraterrestrial.”

 

(There’s always layers to the amount of need-to-know SHIELD lets you have, and it still manages to catch Fury off guard when he finds another block.)

 

-

 

He’s always been holding back.

 

Every major crises and issue and near-world-ending experience has brought him to a pause, bring his hand to the inside of his coat, to look for the pager tucked away.

 

Just for a rainy day.

 

(“Just if you need me.” She laughs, over the rim of a coffee cup.)

 

Fury got three minutes away from calling her in 2012, when the sky opened up and spat out an army of aliens hellbent on invading New York. The council opted for a nuclear strike and all he could think of was Carol Danvers, bigger and brighter than any nuclear weapon America could try to source.

 

Turns out they didn’t really need her then, but there’s a little corner of him that wishes he did. What would she look like? Old like him? Weathered and tired with an ache that sets deep?

 

(Probably not.)

 

Then Maria Hill evaporates in front of him, and he can’t reach out for her sooner.

 

His hand disappears into ash just in time to send the distress signal, the way his fingers have lingered on the pager year in and year out, every crisis and every war.

 

(He has always had to ask himself, if it's worth it. The only hesitant action he can take.)

 

Fury falls into the abyss without a doubt Carol Danvers will come shooting across the galaxy, the universe--wherever the Skrull go to escape the Kree--when he calls.

 

Because that’s just how she is.

 

(He didn’t know her for very long, but he wishes he did. In twenty five years the first seeds of friendship and trust never wilted or rotted. Just grew stronger as the other superheroes in the world rose up to defend and save and avenge the world, if needs be, and she’d be right alongside them.)

 

But for now, Fury falls, and doesn’t, not for a moment, doubt that Carol Danvers will find a way to them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading !!!


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